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This box was painted by Fedoskino artist Kurmaychenko. The composition is an interpretation of a canvas-on-oil painting called "The rooks have returned". Painted in 1871 by Alexey Kontratievich Savrasov, it currently hangs in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
Alexey Savrasov (1830-1897) is one of the founders of Russian realistic landscape painting, master of urban and rural landscapes. Painted in the town of Yaroslavl, his painting "The rooks have returned" was displayed in the first movable art exhibition with a great success.
The compositional depicts a landscape that is typical for Russian countryside: the spring is just arriving, and one of the signs of this is the return of rook birds. They are sitting in the branches of a tree that has not yet begun to sprout leaves, so their nests are clearly visible. Just beyond the trees, a pool of water, perhaps formed by melting snow, reflects the sky and landscape. In the middle ground stands a small village, with an attractive Orthodox church with small gold cupolas and a tall bell tower. A little puff of smoke rises from the chimney of the house on the left. In the distance, the fields, rivers and forests of the Russian landscape stretch off far into the distance, giving the feeling of standing in an immense, expansive landscape. The drawing here is almost impressionistic, with bold strokes of paint creating the illusion of form and lighting, rather than there being a lot of very precise details. The rooks, for example, are little more than spots of dark paint, resting above lighter, thin and hurried collections of brushstrokes that suggest their nests. Spots of different colored paint create the illusion of details in the church tower, as well. This is not to say the work is not successful -- this scene tends to lend itself to the painterly, impressionistic techniques one sees here. The pond on the right has a realistically reflective look, and the application of crushed aluminum powder in the sky and snowy ground adds a striking brilliance -- one gets a sensation of the cool atmosphere and brightness of an early spring day. And the landscape in the distance has a surprisingly realistic look. The openness and expansiveness of the Russian landscape comes across very well in this work.
The box is constructed from paper-mache. Black lacquer covers the exterior and red lacquer covers the interior of the box. Gold and aluminum ornamentation wraps around the sides of the box. The box is not hinged. The box rests on a flat bottom. It is signed with the name of the artist. < br>